Hiking

A late fall exploration and geocaching outing in a Peace Hills Park near Wetaskiwin, AB

I returned to the trails near the south end of Battle Lake today to avenge a 10-year old geocache DNF - “Did Not Find”.

A planned 15.5 km hike took me from Islet Lake Staging Area to Central Staging Area and out to what felt like “way out there” places.

It was last day of my 4-day Kananaskis visit and I saved this mostly flat ramble along Baldy Pass Trail following a string of geocache hides over to Lusk Pass Trail

The geocaches hidden on the way up to the summit of Horton’s Hill in Kananaskis have been on my bucket list for years. Today was the day I made the climb of this steep hill.

I did a short hike to find a long-solved geocache puzzle called “Pathinder”

It was both a physical and psychological stretch for me to successfully climb to the 2536m summit of Mt Burke today. It took a LONG time, but the climb was completed.

I accessed the Blackfoot trails from the Waskehegan Connector Trail, did some geocache maintenance, continued to Push Shelter and returned on Ed’s Way, a trail I’d hiked before.

I did a 15 km figure eight loop hike to Meadow Shelter in the Cooking Lake Blackfoot Recreational Area today.

I hiked from the Islet Lake Staging Area to Push Lake Shelter, then to Lost Lake Shelter and continued on in a wide loop back to the staging area.

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked the trails near Joseph Lake. It was fun rediscoving the place all over again.

I after a long absence, I “rediscovered” a grand loop hike in the southeast section of the Ministik Bird Sanctuary. It’s a route I call the “Mitchell Loop”, named after a cabin tucked in the woods along the way.

The hike today was a thoroughly pleasant outing to find a couple new caches and perform maintenance on a few of my own.

I lived through what turned out to be a very challenging hike through overgrown trails today.

Using geocache maintenance as an excuse, I hiked a 10 km loop along the always excellent trails in the southwest section of the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Prov. Recreation Area today.

It was some of nature’s magic tricks I noticed along the way that impressed me the most during a hike along the trails of the Chickakoo Lake Recreation area today.

I returned to these trails with the goal of finding a cache I’d been unable to find in Dec. 2023. Compared to that visit, this summer outing today provided a far different experience - and I loved it.

To get to a remote cache today, I walked down familiar trails but then covered ground that I’d only once been near before 10 years ago - and that was in the winter months.

I undertook a grand loop hike in the Ministik today, what I call the Five Meadows Hike. It was a gloriously beautiful day to do it too.

Three of us did a two part hike today, first north of Township Rd 510 and then south to Deadfall Alley

In the past I’d walked on stub trails northeast of Mandy Lake and today I wanted to see if they really were actual trails - spoiler alert - there were.

There are some out of the way trails in the Ministik that start but eventually just peter out into nothing. This is one of them.

I made the trek down the trails of a corner of the Ministik I seldom visit today.

After parking at the Chickakoo Equestrian lot, we proceeded to scour the eastern side of Chickakoo for caches

Four of us hiked south from the UofA Access Road gate all the way down Deadfall Alley today.

It’s March and the ice between islands on Ministik Lake can still be walked on. Or can it? Yikes! There’s standing water on a lot of it!

I hiked down the Mandy Lake road, past the old cabin and shelter to hide a geocache today.

I’d waited to make the trek for a while. But the weather promised to be great today and and as it turned out it certainly was.

This was fun and challenging outing. I was anticipating a LOT more bush whacking than I ended up experiencing.

One of my cache containers was the victim of a bored coyote so I hiked in to replace it with a new one today.

I walked the familiar route from the UofA Access Road gate to the unfamiliar boggy shoreline of a large pond in the Ministik.

Two geocaching buddies and I traversed some seldom-walked trails along the North Sask River

It was my first time hiking around the trails at in Glory Hills Natural Area. There were a few caches here, but in the end it was the trails that I remember.

I’d been on this trail a couple of times before but it’s been a long time since the last visit. It’s named Misasin by fellow geocachings, so I’m going with it. It was fun exploring new sections of it today.

This is a geocaching outing where I was SO glad to be with other cachers. The first hide was diabolically hard to find and it was Dwaine who spotted it. They weren’t all like that but some were oh so nicely crafty indeed.

I’ve always just loved hiking in the Chickakoo Lake Recreation Area. There’s is a great mix of tree species that line both the well-travelled main trails and the less-travelled “goat tracks”. This was a solo geocaching hike and I found all but one of the caches I looked for today.

I traveled down the winding road to Mandy Lake today to find two caches. I was with the cache owner when he hid them, so I’m returning to find them fair and square.

I had multiple goals today: to find a challenge cache near Dorward Lake and to capture as many time lapses as I could in the Dorward Lake area.

The main purpose of today’s hike was to swap ammo can geocaching containers for lock ’n lock containers. These caches were hidden quite a distance from parking in the Blackfoot / Cooking Lake Recreational Area.

I made walk over early spring, still somewhat snowy ground to a remote cache today

Four of us crunched through the snow, on trail and off to find geocaches in the area accessible from the Stove Lake trailhead in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary.

The four of us traversed a good portion of the MacTaggart Sanctuary today looking for geocaches

The five of us tackled some steep slopes to get to some geocache hides along the North Sask River and after that hiked through the MacTaggart Sanctuary to find more geocaches

I traversed the snowy inclined trails of the Whitemud Ravine today with a couple of geocaching buddies.

I followed the road to Mandy Lake to find one cache and do some maintenance on one of my own

I hiked on a kind of disjointed trail today with a buddy where I have a string of caches hidden.

See what a fairly remote section of the Hornbeck Recreation Area northwest of Edson, Alberta looks like a the end of September as two geocachers do a loop trek on overgrown trails.

Hiking to one of my geocache hides to do some maintenance was my excuse to experience a beautiful day in a remote, beautiful place.

I hiked in what was for me a new area in the Ministik today and that’s always fun.

I did a loop hike over what has become very familiar ground today. But even on familar paths, the experience of them is always changing.

I walked along the crusty snow first on familiar trails, then off trail on new ground to get to the south end of Oliver Lake today.

I had to do some maintenance on a cache near Mandy Lake in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary and had great outing walking along the still snowy trails to get to it.

This was a memorable day of geocaching for a few remote caches int he Ministik Bird Sanctuary.

I made the snowy walk to scout out a geocache hide, realized I wasn’t going to be able to get to it, so continued on to visit the Ministik fireplace and Red Chair Lookout.

I had a glorious trudge through (not over) the trails to Dorward Lake today to find two caches.

I met my buddy Hugh and we spent hours walking over crusty lake ice to find geocachings hidden on islands on Oliver Lake in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary

I had an excellent walk over hardened trail snow and lake ice to get to remote cache in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary

A geocaching buddy Hugh and I trudge across lake ice early in March, 2021 to get to an island on which a “puzzle” geocache was hidden.

A hike to a fairly remote fire tower in the Ministik Bird Sanctuary southeast of Edmonton is brought to life with StoryMapJS, software that combines maps with images and text.

I’d been “map-dreaming” for literally years about making the trek to Grizzly Ridge Tower. I’d even tried and failed once foiled by muddy roads. But because of the kindness of friends, I was finally able to get there.

My goal for the day was to find two new caches hidden by Jazzhiker who, like me, came to geocaching via hiking.

A winter walk over lake ice to Birch Lake Isle near Innisfree, Alberta.

Although not at all easy to get to even by vehicle, the Cardinal Divide is a memorable place to visit.

This recon hike was made and the blog post written early in my explorations of the Ministik Bird Sanctuary. It’s fun for me to relive the experience these days when the area is well-known to me.

A hike to inner depths of the Cooking Lake - Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area. Starting from the Islet Lake Staging Area, I was on the hunt for ‘cigar’ caches.

A made the memorable climb to the summit of Folding Mountain mid-August, 2010.

It was my first ever visit to Kananaskis where I made the very memorable off-trail climb to the central summit along Lusk Creek Ridge. It was July 1, Canada Day, too!

Grande Cache in the distance as seen from the summit of Mt. Louis Mt. Louie (elevation 1844 m / 6050 ft.) is one of the six Bronze mountains in Grande Cache’s now defunct “Passport to the Peaks” program. During the 5.5 km (one way), sometimes challenging hike to the summit, there’s an elevation gain of 714 meters and along the way the reward of some breathtaking views of the mountains and valleys that surround Grande Cache.

We arrived in Grande Cache wanting to do some hiking and chose almost randomly to climb Mt. Stearn. Boy, did pick a day for a workout!

A second visit to Cooking Lake – Blackfoot Recreational Area in two days. After a fresh snowfall, I broke trail to out of the way places that were brand new to me.

A memorable day of geocaching in the Cooking Lake Blackfoot Recreational Area. I was new to geocaching and this area was completely new to me at this time. The experiences of the day really made an impression on